De Havilland T.K.1

de Havilland Aircraft Company · United Kingdom · first flew 1934 · light aircraft

The De Havilland T.K.1 was a small biplane built in 1934 by apprentices at the de Havilland Aeronautical Technical School as their first original design.

Recognition (WEFT)

W — Wings	Mid-mounted, straight
E — Engines	1 × piston, nose-mounted
F — Fuselage	Unstaggered biplane wings on a fuselage converted from a Swallow Moth monoplane
T — Tail	Conventional

WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.

Spot it by:

Unstaggered biplane wings on a fuselage converted from a Swallow Moth monoplane
Inline inverted Gipsy engine under a slim, rounded nose
Two open cockpits set close together beneath the upper wing

Look for an unstaggered biplane with a stubby, rounded nose carried over from the Swallow Moth donor aircraft, and two open cockpits set close under the upper wing.

Specifications

The De Havilland T.K.1 has a length of 7.32 m (24 ft).
It has a wingspan of 8.23 m (27 ft).
Its maximum speed is 189 km/h (117 mph).
Typical crew: 2.

Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.

History

Marcus Langley's students at Stag Lane converted a de Havilland Swallow Moth monoplane into a biplane, fitting the existing fuselage with a new biplane wing cellule, first flying the result in June 1934. It was the opening entry in the school's T.K. series of student-designed racers and record aircraft.

Variants

The T.K.1 was a one-off; the school's next project, the T.K.2, abandoned the biplane layout entirely for a low-wing racing monoplane.

Where you'll see it

The single T.K.1 did not remain airworthy for long and no airframe is preserved today; it survives mainly through the technical school's own archive photographs.

Related aircraft

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